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Date & start time: Friday 6th March 2009. start.

Location of Event : The red phone box, Loweswater , Cumbria, Uk ( NY 143 211 )

Places visited : Kirkstile, North Top, Mellbreak South Top and back via the traversing path from the middle.

Walk details : 4.5 ml, 1875 ft of ascent, 2 hours.

Highest point : Mellbreak 1,676ft 512m

Walked with : Myself and the dogs, Harry and Bethan.

Weather : Blue skies and cool winter weather, but clouding over as the walk progressed.

The Kirkstile Inn along the way

 

The snow is still about, even after two days of work.

Essential jobs done, I manage a walk on Mellbreak using the dogs as an excuse for a trip out to see the view.

They needed a walk. I needed the view.

What a nice day . . . too good to be doing all those jobs

Essentials done, I make for the hills.

Blue skies, snow covered tops, camera in hand, dogs in tow . . .

. . . we pass the Kirkstile Inn.

. . . and progress up the lane.

Mellbreak offers the chance of snow on the top . . . if it hasn't melted by the time I get there.

   
Hopegill Head seen at the top of Gasgale Gill Valley
The dogs wait for me to catch up . . . lunch was laying heavily.

It's a steep climb but a rewarding one as I zig-zag up the northern face of Mellbreak.

Harry's attention is drawn by a fell runner far below us.

[ Don't search for him, he's down below the cliff.]

The surprise view as we reach the two third's point of the climb.

Robinson catches the sunlight and Great Gable the cloud.

That's my house down there !

Harry at the top of the main climb

Hold your cursor over the picture for a few words from him !

Summit reached, Bethan poses at the cairn and looks around.

Click here or on the photo above for a 380 degree annotated panorama of what she, and I can see.

We made the top before the gentleman runner reached us.

We chatted for a while then he jogged off towards the southern top. I'm heading the same way.

Down the dip and up the other side, passing the peat hags and these icicles along the way.

I managed to catch up with him as he was not really trying for his personal best.

Recovering from a back problem, he was out for a slow run just to get fit.

Photo finish . . . or would have been if I hadn't stopped for this and the previous photo !

A newly rebuilt summit cairn shaped rather like an Canadian Inukshuk - a sign of safe route and of welcome.

High Stile and Red Pike

Competition time . . . I took my tele-converter lens today and got these close up views of distant fells. Can you name them ?

Hold your cursor over the picture for the answers.

Fleetwith, Gtlaramara and High Raise

Photo two . . . looking east.

Catstycam and Helvellyn over Blea Crags on Maiden Moor

Name that peak and the taller one next to it. [hold your cursor again]

Wandope over the ridge from Whiteless Pike

A more difficult one this one . . . which one is the the path leading to ?

All this hanging about for photos has allowed the forecasted cloud to gather

and the sunlight begins to fade as the clouds cover the western sky.

Crummock Water and Buttermere from the eastern slopes of Mellbreak.

Below the rather slushy snow patch, High Ling and Low Ling Crags with Rannerdale Knotts on the other side.

There's a geological connection here but ancient glaciers have forced a passage between, to be filled by the waters of subsequent millennia.

Doubling back across Mellbreak, I search and find a rather diminutive cairn on the path down from the hause.

Hen Comb opposite has a good covering of snow.

The cairn points to the sheep track, now a footpath, that descends gradually from the centre of the fell towards Mosedale.

Another excellent walk full of blue skies, snow and sunshine. Thanks to the gentleman from Cockermouth for his company.

Looking back from the Mosedale path towards Hen Comb. We're planning a walk up there tomorrow with friends . . . if the weather holds.

- - - o o o - - -

 

Technical note: Pictures taken with with my Cannon G7 Digital camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . a spare hour or two in the day

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Previous walk - 4th March 2009 A snowy drive to Keswick

A previous time up here - 19th December 2007 Mellbreak Direct